Cheese and Whiskey
by Fansquee
Summary: She stared at him debating whether or not he was trying to be funny with her.


**Title:** Cheese and Whiskey  
**Author:** fansquee  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Donna and the Doctor (Ten)  
**Spoilers:** Season 4

**A****N**: It's my birthday tomorrow, (2nd of April) so I thought I'd post this as a present to myself. Please R&R

~*~

She'd been sitting quietly for half an hour in the kitchen. Her hands wrapped around a chipped mug of coffee that by now was undrinkable.

The Doctor had first noticed something was amiss when he hadn't heard her general chit-chat or questions or even the bickering, which he always half followed for the curiosity of seeing how long it took before she had forgotten the subject of what they were arguing about in the first place. It'd started to worry him a tad because a quiet Donna wasn't something he'd encountered so early into their travels, and he wasn't entirely positive if it was a normal occurrence with her or not.

He'd already searched many of Donna's familiar haunts. She wasn't one to sit still, and after assuring her that nothing on board the TARDIS would intentionally cause her harm, Donna was known to spend many hours in parts of the old ship that he hadn't set foot inside for decades.

Now, leaning against the doorframe and quietly observing her body language, he realised she seemed lost in thought as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

From where he stood the Doctor cleared his throat, making Donna jump and spill the coffee.

"Here," he said shortly, handing her a damp washcloth. He then filled and then turned the kettle on, confirming his suspicions of the cold beverage, "everything alright?"

"Yeah," Donna replied hurriedly and he could have sworn she wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Just off in a daydream and got lost."

He turned to her, not at all convinced as her cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes were bright. She refused to meet his eyes, instead taking her time with wiping up the spilt drink before throwing the soiled rag into the sink

"Have I done something to upset you?" The Doctor ventured a few moments later. He watched Donna's sudden aggression with forking the sugar, tea bag and coffee into their respective mugs. A sign he'd learnt from Rose when he'd managed on the rare occasions to royally piss her off.

Donna gave him an odd look. "Why would you think that? You only forgot to fill the sugar pot up but it's nothing to get your knickers in a twist."

Humming to himself at her avoidance, he turned the whistling kettle off and poured them each a mug of hot tea. He tossed the would-be coffee so that she wouldn't get any more wired than she already seemed to be.

Donna, not much of a tea enthusiast as the Doctor was, quickly concealed her displeasure at having her coffee dumped. This worried him as any other day she would have ordered him to march right back to that bench and redo it again with the perfection of a Japanese Tea Ceremony, just to set an example. Being a Time Lord, he naturally saw her withhold the remark both in her eyes and felt her consciousness shift within his mind.

And also because he was watching her every move closely.

"It's always good for moments when silence is awkward…" The Doctor tried with a gentle smile as he placed the steaming mug in front of her.

She stared at him debating whether or not he was trying to be funny with her. "And who gave you that morsel of useless information?"

Trying not to show that she'd succeeded in hurting him just a bit with the snappy remark, he just bit his tongue and softly replied.

"Well, actually, it was Rose; it was after our first encounter with the Dalek in Utah… only time I've pointed a gun with the unquenchable urge to kill." He huffed a little bitter laugh. "It's what the argument was about actually, guns and I."

Donna went slightly pale, realising her sarcasm wasn't called for at the time. "I'm sorry, it was rude of me."

The Doctor just waved it off, clearing his throat then covering the action with a large and loud slurp of tea. They again sat in awkward silence, the tea not seeming to work its magic like it used to. He was halfway through his drink before he decided to just take the bull by the horns.

"Are you alright?" He asked while he slowly stirred his tea.

"No," she murmured softly, "I'm not."

"Has something happened?"

"My dad was in hospital this time last year," Donna finally confirmed, "he wasn't feeling well and so we took him to the hospital, after a few tests they said he was having a heart attack."

"Oh, Donna… I'm so sorry." He took her hand to comfort her and she grasped it tightly

"Nothing you could have done," she bit her lip. "He thought it was reflux. Imagine that; he was dying for two days and … all we kept telling him was to just take an anti-acid with some milk and quite complaining."

"You didn't know." The Doctor hushed as he handed her a clean hanky, she took it but didn't wipe her eyes.

"Mum was filling out the forms for the other tests to confirm how bad the damage to his heart was. It was about 1am and I asked dad if he wanted anything and he just said 'Hmmm… a cheese sandwich would be good.' Last thing he said to me." She sniffed hard, never letting go of the Doctor's hand as she continued. "The kitchens were closed, nothing was in the wards station fridge and the nurses had their hands full with paperwork and couldn't help. I must have driven all over the bloody place, but do you think I could find a sandwich place open? Even the 24hr grocery store was closed!"

Despite himself the Doctor smiled at Donna's ability to rant about the common unfairness that was the odd opening hours with grocery stores.

"My stupid phone was in a blackout zone, so I didn't get any texts or calls from mum or the hospital until I was in the car park…" Donna went very quiet for a moment or two, gathering her voice and getting her emotions under control. "Dad had a massive heart-attack twenty minutes after I'd left. He'd gone to sleep and never woke from it."

Donna started crying, and the Doctor gathered her into a hug, rocking her gently as he soothed her with words that would have meant nothing from others.

He didn't have the exact words to comfort, but his presence seemed to be a balm to the still raw wound that he hadn't noticed or bothered to look for. He'd known that the dynamics of the family had changed but not to the degree Donna was telling him.

After a few moments, Donna calmed enough to use the hanky, wiping her eyes and nose, and attempting to give him a watery smile just to let him know everything would be alright… that they were ok.

"Right!" The Doctor got up, picking up both of their mugs and dumping the leftover contents in the sink. "This calls for something much stronger than tea."

Leaving the mugs in the sink water to soak them clean, he left the tap running as he searched the cupboards. Not finding what was looking he muttered a few curses in Gallifreyan and disappeared from the kitchen.

Donna hardly noticed; she wasn't comfortable with telling people about her family, especially the Doctor. Oh, she trusted him with her life and such, but how could you share secrets you'd never tell friends with someone who never even told you their own name?

A glass tumbler was placed before her and it jogged Donna from her musings. Looking up, she saw a bottle of alien whiskey that boasted it was made in some odd year… but what caught her eye was that it was made and bottled on Gallifrey.

"Don't open it," she said softly, "I'm not worth you losing something more of home."

"There's no one else I'd rather have it with." He replied sincerely and opened the bottle, (she could have sworn she heard Connoisseur Whiskey lovers screaming in utter horror as he did) and poured them each a generous amount of amber liquid that smelt of nothing she'd ever encountered before.

"To loved ones," the Doctor toasted.

"To those left behind," Donna agreed.


End file.
